About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

2008 Indiana Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2008)

handle is hein.sag/sagin0007 and id is 1 raw text is: ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INDIANA PUBLIC ACCESS COUNSELOR To the Indiana General Assembly July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008 Pursuant to Ind. Code § 5-14-4-12, the Indiana Public Access Counselor (PAC) hereby submits this annual report of activities for the time period covering July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008.1 This report is presented in three parts: a narrative summary of the activities of the PAC in Part I; the information required to be submitted pursuant to I.C. § 5-14-4-12 in Part II; and appendices with more detailed information about the presentations given and the advisory opinions issued in the past year in Part III. PART I Annual Report Narrative and Executive Summary Public Access Counselor and Staff On July 1, 2007, Governor Daniels appointed a new Public Access Counselor to a four-year term of office ending June 30, 2011. The current counselor is Heather Willis Neal. The PAC also employs one full-time administrative assistant. Advisory Opinions From July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, the PAC issued 336 written advisory opinions in response to formal complaints. See I.C. 5-14-5 regarding the complaint process. This number represents a 34% increase in the number of advisory opinions issued compared with the previous reporting period and a 720% increase compared to the first reporting period, July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000. Eleven complaints were pending as of June 27, 2008. Pursuant to I.C. § 5-14-5-9, advisory opinions must be issued within thirty days of receipt of a formal complaint. The deadline for priority complaints is seven days. I.C. § 5-14-5-10; 62 IAC 1. The PAC met the statutory requirement for timely issuance of advisory opinions. A detailed list of advisory opinions follows in Appendix B. Informal Opinions In addition to advisory opinions in response to formal complaints, the PAC issues written informal opinions in response to written informal inquiries. Upon taking office on July 1, 2007, the current PAC found a backlog of dozens of requests for informal opinions (the exact number is difficult to determine because the paper files did not correspond completely with the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet), with some of those requests dating back to 2005. As of February 8, 2008, the current PAC and assistant cleared that backlog by contacting each requester and then issuing opinions where the requester was still awaiting an opinion. In addition to the backlog inquiries, the PAC issued 42 informal opinions in response to requests received in the time period July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. The established turn-around time for those informal opinions is now three weeks. For the first quarter of 2008, the PAC In order to timely prepare this report under the statute, all data were compiled as of noon on Friday, June 27, 2008.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most